Flat Out
by whipplefilter
Summary: After the crash. "You ever had a part replaced?" asks the nurse. "It can be hard to come back, when you get that much new put into you. Makes it hard to remember who you are." "Wait, you're saying he might-"


When she calls the Rusteze brothers, they've already heard about the crash, of course-everyone's heard. Everything is chaos, anyway. Because this kind of thing just doesn't happen to Lightning McQueen.

"So what should I tell the assessor, then?" Sally asks, wishing for the third straight day she'd kept up with insurance law a little better.

But Rusty can't find the papers, and Dusty swears they photocopied the manifest-the one Lightning brought to Boston with him from Smell Swell, ten long years ago. Ten long and poorly book-kept years ago. For all Lightning's fame, Rusteze had stayed small, family-run, and primarily focused on ridding the world of rusty bumpers: They don't have stampers on call for this level of repairs. They don't even know who his manufacturer was. Lightning's looking at a total body rebuild, Sally knows, but who does she call about that? They can't just call Ford and have them crank out some new panels for him. He's one of a kind.

And this kind of thing doesn't happen to Lightning McQueen. Lightning McQueen is untouchable.

Sally hears a crash, and an avalanche of boxes hitting boxes and paper tumbling from piles. Rusty asks if she could please call back later.

They are so very sorry.

* * *

She remembers watching The King in 2006, beat to hell but still gamely giving as many interviews as the press could hope to ask of him. A good roll-cage, and you can take a decent beating. It's part of the sport (even when it isn't sporting).

She remembers Phoenix-Lightning's second season. First time she'd ever seen him race-really race-in person, because it was local and Mater promised he could watch the town. Just for a few hours.

"Are you okay?" she'd asked, after the race, after the cameras had gone and all the adrenaline in the air had quieted some.

"What? Why? Huh?" said Lightning, pitching from camera charisma to neurotic self-consciousness, zero to sixty. "Do I have a dent? Is there something-"

"No! Stop swerving," Sally quickly assured him. "You just sound different. A little."

"Oh!" Lightning laughed, relaxed into his suspension. "It's fine. That's just my engine."

"Just your-"

200 laps at 200 miles an hour? he told her. An engine's only built for so much, and it starts to degrade. But it's fine-they replace it after every race.

Every single race.

You know, where I'm from, Sally didn't say, engine failure is a death sentence. But here they are, making a sport out of it.

* * *

By the time Sally edges past the medic cars, Lightning is on fire. The track is slick with oil, solid chalky smoke billowing up. She sees him slit his eyes open, just for a moment. For a fraction of a second, Sally feels relief. But he's still on fire. His eyes screw shut to match the tight line of his mouth.

He doesn't see her, or try to say anything. He doesn't react to his pain or carnage in the way she's seen him gripe about cacti, or asphalt drips. Lightning's the kind of car who can spend all day slamming himself with dirt and molten rubber, only to come home and get so distracted by a cosmetic scratch his world screeches to a halt until he has it buffed out.

This is different.

It's hard to make out in the roar of the crowd and the chatter of EMTs, but Sally can hear a thin, keening hum, and that's Lightning. They bring a forklift around-it's massive, probably five or six Guidos-to carry him into the ambulance. He can't move at all.

"A swing set, I think," Sally answers, when Lightning wakes to half his body missing, slivered sheet metal brushed into a corner and his drivetrain in a thousand separate pieces. She's trying to be truthful-where's my quarter panel, what are they doing with it, what are they doing to me, he'd asked in quick succession. But in spite of his rapid-fire interrogation, Lightning's not quite with it. Her sense of humor, she realizes, requires a little more presence of mind.

"Oh, stop." She kisses him, lips to bare engine, to quell his panic. "You're gonna be okay," she promises.

"A _swing set?!_ "

"You're gonna be fine," she says. "I'm not turning you into a swing set. It's just that piece of you-there was too much damage, so the garage is going to recycle it. I've already ordered you a new panel. It's just going to take a while. You're one of a kind, you know that? Relax. Nothing is going to happen to you."

"But it already did," says Lightning. "I'm- I just-"

In a few months, they'll laugh about this, Sally assures herself. She forgets to say it aloud.

* * *

"Oh, like law school," Sally quips, when the doctor tells her that before it gets better, it's going to get a whole lot worse.

The doctor smiles, wistful and sad. They way you do when you admire someone's pluck, but you do not envy their position.

"You'll want to be here for him," says the doctor.

* * *

They have him on IV coolant, other fluids. External battery. It's a matter of doing things in the right order, the nurse informs her. Kids like this tear themselves up trying to get out before they're put all back together.

"Can't just keep the battery out, though. Otherwise we can't monitor the other stuff," she says.

"'Other stuff'?" says Sally.

"You ever been in a crash?" asks the nurse. But she looks Sally up and down and she must decide that no, Sally's never, because she continues, "You call the right people, we can put anyone back together. Don't matter how rare your plug type is, what kind of custom-build you are. This is the best garage in Los Angeles-we can do it.

"Not everyone comes back, though."

"Comes back, what do you mean 'comes back'?"

"So you've never had a crash. You ever had a part replaced?" asks the nurse.

Sally can feel the nurse's scrutinizing gaze. It's like she's being stared down by the nurse's paint job along with her eyes-each stenciled rose on her hood casting judgment. Sally hasn't felt her Porsche-ness this keenly in a long, long time. "Of course," she says, maybe too defensively. She's not a show car; she works for a living. She runs a whole town. Of course she's had a part replaced.

Once. She's driving too fast on a road that's too poor and she bottoms out hard. Cripples a suspension arm and the noise she makes driving is what draws Doc's attention-what brings her to Radiator Springs.

It hadn't hurt, to lose the part. After Doc fixed her up, she'd felt off-kilter, sure. But who wouldn't? Having wandered into the desert and left her whole world behind.

But the nurse nods. "And that was just one part. It can be hard to come back, when you get that much new put into you. Makes it hard to remember who you are."

"Wait, you're saying he might-"

 _what if he's not Lightning_

"I'm only trying to prepare you. This is going to be hard," says the nurse. "Make sure you keep taking care of yourself, too. He knows who you are, right? You're his lawyer?"

"I'm his-"

"Just stay you. It won't do him any good if you're not. -Oh, honey." This last, the nurse says as she draws closer to give Sally a gentle bumper tap. "He's a racecar, right? Then he'll be used to this. Did you know they get their engines replaced after every race?"

* * *

They go system by system. On the docket today: Alternator, rotor assembly. Every bearing, every bracket therein. Lightning barely knows his name.

 _Focus_ , he whispers. _Focus. I am speed. I am speed._

"Hey stickers, I'm here for you. I'm here." She doesn't know what else to say.

 _Focus,_ says Lightning. _Focus, focus, focus._

* * *

"So, Stickers," she'd asked once, many years ago. He'd just come back, was still negotiating to get his headquarters officially moved to town. She'd been waiting for him to ask her about business protocol in Radiator Springs, permits, all that, but he hadn't yet. She wasn't sure he was serious-that he'd really go through with it. Wasn't sure he really planned to stay.

"Do all racecars talk to themselves as much as you do? Or is that Lizzie rubbing off?"

"Who else would I talk to?" he replied. His response was instant, conditioned. It escaped him before he realized what he'd just admitted.

That's when Sally knew: It was real. He was staying. He needed them.

He wanted them.

* * *

When the lights go out at the garage, Sally returns to old haunts. She never thought she'd get back on the 405 again, wander through these neighborhoods again. Used to be, she'd spend a hundred miles on the road at peak commute hours, just to meet her clients. The last case she took she'd been trying to save a river. A plant was dumping oil in it.

We need it to wash, claimed her clients. And him, he needs that water for his old radiator-we need it to live. We need-

She'd had to ask Tex directions to the garage. They hadn't let her ride in the bus with Lightning-there wasn't room inside for both her and the forklift paramedic. Besides, she had half the town to manage back at the pit, and the only car who wasn't in a state of battery shock was Mater. Maybe it's because he's a tow truck, and was built for this kind of thing. Or maybe it's because Mater is the only one who believes, unequivocally, that Lightning McQueen, Number 95, is indestructible.

She put Mater in charge.

"Well, sure, Miss Sally. Where do you want me to round us up and wait?"

"Don't wait," she told him. "Mater, this could take- Some time."

Mater smiled. "Shoot, well, tell Lightning I'll see him tomorrow then, when you get back in town!"

"I'll have him call when we're ready," Sally promises.

* * *

"What are you going to do with that?" Sally asks a forklift, who's cleaning the oil from the track. She's not sure what she's supposed to do. If she's supposed to bring Lightning's scattered bits and pieces to the garage, or if they won't need them any more.

"Refinery, probably," says the forklift. "Don't want it to end up in some river, you know? We recycle."

"I'm headed to the garage," Sally offers. "Where, um. The car that spilled that- Will they need it? I can bring it-"

The forklift chuckles. "What? No. This oil's never gonna race again. It's over."

* * *

Lightning wears his feelings on his fenders. When Doc died, Sally could see the pall on Lightning from half a world away. When she parks beside him, the heat of her exhaust so close it tickles him awake, it's like she's close enough to see his emptiness from the inside out.

On bad days, it's quiet. They don't have much to say to each other, not when it's taking everything Lightning has to keep existing. Not even being-you know. Lightning. Just existing.

On good days, Lightning is antsy and anxious and to Sally, they don't feel that much better than the bad days.

On most days, Lightning acts like this day is the worst day of his life. Sally hasn't asked yet if he remembers the bad ones. She lets him repeat to himself, _Focus._

 _Focus._

 _I am Lightning._

* * *

She asks, once. If they can take this slower. Space out the repairs more, ease up. Because this is putting him through hell. If they really want to make sure Lightning- _real_ Lightning-comes back with his body, they can't keep running him like this. He's tired. He's too tired.

"Not if he's planning to be ready for the qualifiers," says the nurse-different one this time; a stocky Ford Escort in scrub green. "Racecar, right?"

Sally nods. "Lightning McQueen," she emphasizes. It goes against every in bolt her body to play on fame and grandeur like that-because that's not even who he is to her, that's not how she thinks of him. But right now, Sally needs this nurse to know. He needs to know who they're talking about, because this is Lightning McQueen. And Lightning is like no one else.

"Right. Well. Mr. McQueen did give you power of attorney," the nurse acknowledges. "But only if Mr. McQueen is physically unable to make those decisions for himself."

"What if that's too late?"

The nurse shrugs. "Have you ever told a racecar to slow down?"

Yes, she has.

* * *

But this is where Lightning's discipline hits the road, Sally realizes. Rubber to pavement. Every treadless inch clinging to the road like it's life itself. Oh, she's seen his talent. Sure. She's felt his joy. But what she sees in this garage? That's pure discipline.

Because there is no joy in this. And no matter what that nurse said, Sally knows that no amount of talent can make it any easier to reclaim a front-arm assembly, or make a timing belt feel like a part of you. Lightning works for it.

There are days when Sally's honestly not sure Lightning has the presence of mind to even understand why he's working-who is he? what is he working for? why? But he never stops.

Somewhere deep and indelible inside him, he knows he will always do whatever it takes. That's what makes him, probably. It's never occurred to him that that commitment is his choice. He'll probably never understand how special that is, Sally realizes. For him, there's never been any other option. This is who he is, and he just _is_.

The hows and whys? They'll have to race to catch up.

* * *

"Imagine. Somewhere out there there's a bunch of Smartcars launching themselves into the air, from a swing made out of a piece of you. They're performing death-defying antics in your name."

"Gee, thanks, Sal. That's not creepy at all."

"When you think I'm funny again, I'll know you're feeling better."

* * *

There's a rehab circuit outside the garage-nothing much, just a gravel circuit designed for more leisurely pursuits than Lightning's about to put it through. He shoots down the first straightaway, probably clocks 90 in the first eight seconds. Takes the first, second turns tight until Sally hears a shrieking, clattering sound, like things falling apart.

Lightning guns it backwards, though, and out pops a harmless piece of gravel, probably wedged against a rotor somewhere. Lightning rolls his eyes, he's fine, lines up to start again.

After another few laps, just as it seems like he's hit his groove, his body swings out and he loses the turn. Cuts straight through the center of the doughnut and narrowly misses a streetlight as he careens to a stop.

 _blown tire, slams the wall-noses down, must hit a fold or a bump or something because then he's airborne, airborne, until he's not_

In Sally's mind, it's that moment all over again.

But all Lightning says is, "Hm. Front alignment's off."

* * *

 _I am Lightning. I am fearless._

* * *

When the numbers come back, it would've cost less to pull a new face from the rookie pool. Not by _too_ much, Sally assures herself, but a bottom line is a bottom line, and for all the glitz and glamor, the return on racing isn't high enough to justify that kind of expense. Even for Lightning.

"We'll figure it out," says Dusty.

"We think we've figured it out," says Rusty. And Dusty adds, "Yes, we've already figured it out! You know a guy named Sterling at all?"

Before Sally can say no, Rusty butts in, "Yeah, we know-all you LA types all know each other, right?" And Dusty guffaws. "Anyway," says Rusty. "Sterling-real ace businessman. We're ironing the deal out now. It's all going to work out, Ms. Carrera. But maybe-"

Rusty pauses.

"Sally," says Dusty. "Lightning needs-Lightning deserves-more than we can give him. Always has. So we've decided to sell. Oh, don't look sad! This is great! We've always wanted to travel, you know? Two retirees, on a cruise-"

"On a scrap barge-!" Rusty sings.

"We can make this work, Ms. Carrera. We want to make this work." Rusty regards her warmly. "And this is how. But could you-"

"Not tell him?" says Dusty. "I mean, we'll tell him about the sale, once it's final. But not the why, you know?"

"It'd break his heart," says Rusty.

* * *

Lightning's running laps again when Sally returns to the garage. His realignment's not scheduled until tomorrow morning, but he's running anyway. Under normative conditions it probably wouldn't be noticeable at all, but at the speed he's going, Sally can see the sloppiness in his handling. It's just not what he looks like when he's on his game.

She watches him spin out, keep running, spin out, keep running. Every time he loses control Sally sees him on fire again. Lightning, though-he just looks at her.

Lightning's not afraid of crashing. He'll put his body on the line again, no hesitation. Lightning's only afraid of what other people will see in that crash.

"Have you heard from Rusty and Dusty?" Lightning asks later that night, and Sally nods.

"They've got your back," she says. "They said to tell you, never doubt that."

Lightning's eyes widen. She's not sure why he finds this so surprising.

Lightning smiles.

"Sally, thank you."

"For what?"

"Um, not letting them turn me into a swing set. I guess?"

"I think that really is what they said they were gonna build, though," Sally deadpans. "I wasn't kidding."

"You know, the nurses were taking bets on how much I'd be worth in scrap metal."

"I'm sure they were joking."

"None of you are funny!"

* * *

Three months to the day, and Lightning finally gets his discharge papers. They should be headed to Florida, probably. But Lightning says "Home, first" in a way that suggests "Maybe Florida, never," but it's hard to tell.

"It's just for identifying purposes, you know? So cars will be able to tell who you are, even though you're still in primer."

It's the same nurse from the beginning-the one with the airbrushed roses on her hood.

"Identifying... purposes?" Lightning repeats. "Why would anyone need to identify me?"

"Well, if you get separated. You know how things happen at truck stops, and all."

"Trust me, that is _not_ happening," Lightning insists. "And even if it did, can't I just, you know, identify myself? I don't need a nametag to know who I am."

"Of course you don't, dear," says the nurse, obligingly.

* * *

That nurse's concern is all wrong, of course. Lightning is Lightning will always be Lightning. Of this, Sally is certain. On their way back to Radiator Springs, they suffer no truck stop mishaps. No one is sold for a swing set.

But Lightning bounces on his shocks and tests his transmission and she knows that it's hard. There isn't a single part of him that wasn't newly minted in the last four months. He kept some screws, maybe, the parts of you you never think about.

She knows what it took to win that back-what it's taking. She knows that it will take even more to win back the track.

"You will, though," she tells him, in the dark of Doc's workshop, in the bluish haze of film reel static. "You're good at making things yours."

Lightning regards her quizzically.

"What, do you need proof?" Sally laughs. "There's a whole town idling outside, waiting for you."

"Actually, it's just me waiting right out here," Mater whispers loudly, as he bangs the workshop doors open. "The rest of them's all waiting down at Flo's! And Rusty and Dusty, they're waiting in the phone. Or on the phone. No-in the phone-?"

Lightning rolls toward the open door. "Sally-" he starts.

"Hey, don't thank _me_. This is all you," she says. "Go get it, Swing Set."

* * *

Lightning revs his engine.


End file.
